The Magic Flute

Strange dream of eternal love 

Prince Tamino falls head over heels for a portrait of Princess Tamina and embarks on a quest to save her from the evil Sarastro. Tamino and Pamina’s dream worlds collide, becoming one strange dream – or is it a nightmare? Lurking in the background is the oddball bird catcher Papageno. 

This surreal and enchanting love story features flying elephants, soaring butterfly boys, the Queen of the Night as a menacing spider and far more riddles than answers.    

Blockbuster success from acclaimed director 

Director Barrie Kosky was behind last year's critically acclaimed Dialogues des Carmélites, described by NRK’s Eystein Sandvik as “simply a triumph”. Together with the British theatre company 1927, he has now created a unique version of one of the world’s most performed operas. 

Since premiering at Komische Oper Berlin in 2012, the production has held over a million audience members spellbound in more than 45 cities around the world. It is now being performed in Norway for the first time. 

Deliciously absurd mix of silent film and cartoon

Berliner Morgenpost 

Colourful silent film

Kosky and 1927's production is inspired by the silent filmsof the 1920s. The stage turns into a living canvas where black-and-white animations and singers interact in an impressive visual choreography. The result is a Magic Flute like no other: playful, whimsical, and irresistibly beautiful. 

This is an opera where an eight-year-old and an eighty-year-old can sit next to each other in the theatre and each have a profound experience. 

Much-loved classic 

The Magic Flute is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s final opera, with a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder, who personally starred as Papageno when it premiered in 1791. It features great stylistic musical variety and some of opera history's most famous arias, from the Queen of the Night’s breakneck coloraturas to Papageno’s chirpy birdsongs. 

“They have reimagined and evolved an old story so thoroughly and energetically that it has lifted the bar for any subsequent retelling.”

– Brigid Delaney, The Guardian